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We are taking a short break from production. We will return next Thursday, February 12th with the final episode of our In the Shadow of Rome series.
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Episode 35 – In the Shadow of Rome: Origins and Gender
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Rev. Deborah solo-casts again, this time exploring the origins of Jesus Christ as told in the Gospels of Mark and John through the lens of gender.
Transcript
DDM Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.
MET And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.
DDM This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.
DDM Hello and welcome!
DDM In this episode I want to continue looking at Mark and John’s origin stories of Jesus, how they differ, why they differ, but particularly in how they deal with the issue of gender. If you go back to a previous episode, you will see Elizabeth and I looked at this theme in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but I want us to look at them through Mark and John’s eyes.
DDM Rember Mark is writing after the temple has been destroyed, to Jews and Gentiles who are socially and economically struggling. This is an incredibly difficult time of social change, feeling like everything that had given security is destroyed. And they are feeling very vulnerable.
DDM And then Mark begins his gospel with “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” Everybody is ready for good news, especially the poor and the vulnerable who are reading Mark, so what is this good news?
DDM In times of great social change, we always see two movements emerging. One will be to want to go back to the way things were, a return to the old ways, family values, a deeply conservative movement. And the other will be the need for something radically new, realizing that the old ways no longer work or even can work, they are gone and a new way needs to be found.
DDM Mark will give the community the latter. And so he begins with Jesus, no mention of Mary or Joseph, of a traditional family, of conception or childhood, not even the mention of a human father or virgin birth. For Mark, there is no emphasis on Jesus’ mother or any female role in his origins. For Mark he is simply the divine Son, the Son of God, not created through any gendered family story, but declared through God’s own voice breaking into our world at his baptism. You are MY Son, the beloved. For Mark, the birth story of Jesus is not about pregnancy and birthing, but about baptism, a choice we make to proclaim that we too are God’s children, beloved and pleasing to God.
DDM In fact, in Mark’s gospel it is interesting that Mary and his family don’t appear until much later in the gospel, where Jesus in very difficult words literally redefines family. When people are telling him your family is here for you, Jesus says, “Who is my mother and brother and sisters? Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
DDM This must have been almost offensive to his traditional biological family. But here we see Jesus teaching us that to follow God may mean we need to detach our identities from our traditional family and gender structures in order to do the will of God. And that following God will mean we inherit a new family, not based on gender, biological roles, and relationships, but on seeking and doing the will of God. This is not biological family first, but the family of those who do the will of God first. This is not traditional family values, but upending the patriarchal family systems, by creating a new family not defined by biological or gendered roles.
DDM What is interesting in Mark’s gospel is that although women are absent as birthers and mothers in the beginning of Jesus’ story according to Mark, they are crucial at every important moment in the rest of the Gospel narrative. Women are the ones at the foot of the cross when the male disciples run away, women are the first witnesses to witness the empty tomb and the resurrection.
DDM Mark is showing women in his gospel not as birthers and mothers first and foremost, but instead as disciples and witnesses of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and therefore disciples and apostles in this new faith community.
DDM At a time of great social upheaval, Jesus is calling this new community of faith, after the destruction of the temple, to build a new faith community, where women will not be seen primarily as mothers and birthers of the old patriarchal society, but instead women will be disciples and apostles of a new family and community in this kingdom of God on earth.
DDM And so, what is this good news that Mark is proclaiming in terms of gender?
DDM Well, that your identity does not come from being a mother or father, from your gender and traditional gender roles. But your identity comes from your choice to become a part of God’s family, that you are a child of God, beloved and pleasing to God. Mark is reminding them that their identity comes not from their birth stories, around economic standing, family history, or gender but instead through divine calling. And to respond to that divine calling will mean that they will be free, and perhaps even asked, to break social boundaries, even patriarchal ones, to build this new community of discipleship.
DDM Mark is reminding this vulnerable community of readers, that when we step out of these class and gender categories, when we are prepared to let go of our identities as mothers or fathers, when we let go of our identities as men or women, jew or gentile, then we are ready to stand with Jesus at the cross and see the resurrection of God and of our lives. Discipleship for Mark will replace hierarchy.
DDM In Mark’s gospel all are welcome to be a part of this new family, and all it takes is an act of choice. One that we are all equally free to make, regardless of our gender, our class, our culture, our status.
DDM Now John, remember, is speaking to Jews and gentiles that have been thrown out of the synagogues and Roman world because of their wrestling with who this Jesus is? And so how does John deal with gender in Jesus’ origin story?
DDM John begins with Jesus as beyond gender. In the beginning was the Word, through whom everything was created. So for John, the beginning takes place in the universe, not in a womb. Everything in all its gender shapes and forms come from Jesus and are created through this Jesus. And yet, when this Word enters our world, the Word enters being named not as male or female but flesh. Jesus comes in the flesh of humanity.
DDM And so again we see John presents Jesus without a biological mother or father, because Jesus always has been, and was never created. Jesus is instead the creator. And when God enters our world, it is as humanity, the focus being on the humanity of God – not the gender. And so, we see in John’s account that Jesus transcends and bypasses gender entirely. This story is not about biological reproduction or male lineage, but instead about a God who exists beyond our patriarchal structures with no reference to a mother or a father, and who choses not gender but human flesh. This is a story of incarnation, not of birth.
DDM John will later speak a lot about the need for us to re-born, again taking life and salvation outside of biology and gender, and about the need to be find life outside of “a man’s will” – referring to patriarchal paternity, or from the flesh referring to a woman’s body, but instead born from the Spirit – which is again beyond gender, and irrespective of gender. So John gives to us in the opening verses a way of being in flesh, embodied but beyond gender and traditional forms of gender.
DDM However, in order to attempt to silence or pull Jesus down the crowds say, isn’t this the son of Joseph? We know where you come from. John quotes these voices and comments to show to his readers that human birth stories have nothing to do with divine character and identity, no matter how much others may try to make them so.
DDM A little later in John’s gospel, the first sign of who Jesus is will be with Mary at a wedding. John doesn’t introduce her as Jesus’ mother, but rather in the formal title Woman. This is Jesus symbolically seeing even his own mother as a Woman in her own right and being, not simply as his mother. This shows us how Jesus is calling us to see each other in this new community. Not primarily as mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, but as individuals beyond patriarchal roles, individuals in our own right. Even for Mary, the Mother of God, this mothering role must give way to faith and discipleship, and so the story is about Mary the believer and Jesus the Messiah.
DDM Again it is in John’s gospel that we so clearly the creation by Jesus of a new family, so at the foot of the cross Jesus says to Mary – not mother – but Woman, behold your son referring to John, and then to John he says Behold your mother.
DDM Mothering for Jesus is not primarily biological, but it is the role we embrace in this new family. And so, in this story in John, a new spiritual family is created, beyond biological and gender ties, but rooted in faith.
DDM Just as we see in Mark’s gospel, moving beyond biological gender is not a diminishment of who we are, or of who women are. Mary is the Woman who begins his public ministry at the wedding of Cana, it is the Samaritan woman in Johns gospel who is the first to proclaim him as Messiah, it is Martha of Bethany that makes the strongest confession of faith – I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God and it is Mary Magdalene that is the first witness of the resurrection and becomes the first apostle. And so, women in John’s gospel are held in the highest regard – but not because of their biology, but because who they are as people.
DDM John is reminding this community that has been excluded from the rest of their people, that they have an opportunity to create a whole new community of faith. That this is the beginning of a new family, but John is equally saying to them, don’t repeat the patriarchal structures that don’t serve you. Instead find a new way to be together as a faith family, of deep equality, irrespective of biology and gender.
DDM Because in Johns gospel salvation is for all, to all who receive him, he gave power to become children of God. This ostracized community are being called children of God, irrespective of whether they were Jewish or gentile, male or female, poor or middle class. And they are to share in the divine life of the Word of God through faith and being reborn in the Spirit.
MET Thank you for listening to The Priest and the Prof. find us at our website, https ://priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at https://priestandprof.org/donate/. That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.
DDM Music by Audionautix.com.
Episode 34 – In the Shadow of Rome: Origins and Class
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In this solo-cast, Rev. Deborah Duguid-May explores the origins of Jesus as told in the Gospels of Mark and John, which do not have traditional birth narratives.
Transcript
Welcome! In this series Elizabeth and I have been doing on the Gospels and the differing birth narratives of Jesus, we focused on Matthew and Luke as contrast Gospels. One story told to an oppressed Judean population under military occupation, the other to wealthy Roman converts about this Palestinian Messiah. Each story shaped to its audience to be the transformative liberating news that particular community needs for salvation or wholeness.
So if you didn’t catch those episodes I encourage you to go back and listen to how Matthew and Luke are contrasting opposites of what is needed for liberation.
But in this episode I want to focus on Mark and John which, in their own way, are the other two contrasting narratives, and in this podcast look at these Gospels through a focus on class.
Mark’s Gospel is written around 65-75 AD, either in Rome or Syrian Palestine, after The Temple has been destroyed. He is writing to a mixed community of Jews and Gentiles, who were urban, lower to middle class, experiencing a lot of instability under Roman rule, and also persecution and social forms of exclusion. His readers were socially and economically vulnerable and used to being overlooked. There was a lot of suffering amongst his readers.
Now in Mark’s Gospel, some of you may be saying there is no birth narrative at all. True there isn’t. Mark doesn’t tell you anything about Jesus genealogy, about the angels, about a virgin birth, there is no Judean ancestry stories, no wise men, Herod or any political rulers and powers. But one thing I learnt from studying theology, is what is not spoken about is as important as what is. The things we don’t say and never mention are just as important and sometimes even more so than what is spoken about. The silences have as much to say as what is said.
Mark begins with a prophet in the wilderness, John, and a peasant from Galilee called Jesus. Mark choses to avoid Jesus’ family background, his class, his status, any social credentials. Jesus is not portrayed as royalty, or as a miraculous birth. Instead Mark begins with Jesus as an adult, arriving from the margins of society. Mark tells us this man is from Nazareth, not Bethlehem, Nazareth being an obscure rural town with no political or religious importance in the Galilee, a cosmopolitan area of many different cultures. Jesus in Mark’s Gospel is named in the very first verse as the Messiah (appealing to Jewish readers) and the Son of God (appealing to Roman readers) But this Messiah and son of God does not come from Bethlehem nor Jerusalem, but from the outskirts. Just as John who baptizes him in the first chapter is from the wilderness, clothed in camels hair, eating foraged wild food, so Jesus comes to the Jordan from the margins. And so Mark is already placing those who come from the margins as being where God is working.
This would have resonated with Mark’s audience, who were gentiles and Jews, living with economic and political instability, trying as adults to survive in very vulnerable times. God, Mark is saying, is here among you, on the margins, amongst those society is overlooking.
Secondly, we see Jesus as an adult choosing to be baptized. This is not the vulnerable child, but the adult Jesus whose first act is to chose to be baptized. Mark is reminding his audience they have the capacity to chose. Power is found in ability to make choices. And so Jesus in the opening verses of Mark is seen making the choice to be baptized.
Mark is also letting us know that this Messiah, this Son of God will be shaped by humility. He will seek baptism as one with all the crowds, he will not think of himself as above any others, but root himself with all those seeking a renewed experience of God and God’s presence. What is also important is that Mark clearly tells us that this is a baptism of repentance. Many people have argued about whether Jesus, who traditionally has been thought of as sinless needed to be baptized, because what would he have needed to repent of? I think again though we see the humility of Jesus, saying my life too is going to be marked by the constant need to let go of so many things in order to follow my true path and calling. Because repentance is essentially about letting go, and choosing to walk in the opposite direction. Jesus’ life would be marked in many ways by a radical repentance, letting go of the human desire for wealth, security, safety, family, power and ego and choosing instead to live in a way that was radically different. And so jesus identifies in the opening chapter of Mark with outcasts, sinners, sick people, women, gentiles and the demon possessed as one seeking God and seeking repentance. Mark is completely upending any expectations and assumptions we have about the Messiah and the Son of God and strength, royalty and even power and leadership, and that God is actively working instead among the crowds, of which his readers are a part.
And then in Mark we see Jesus being identified directly by God as You are my Son whom I love, with you I am well pleased. For Mark, the identity of Jesus is the beloved Son of God, who holds the approval of God. And this will be contrasted in the next chapters by how Jesus will be constantly misunderstood and rejected by the religious leaders, by his own hometown and even his family. Even his disciples will not understand the idea of the Messiah who will suffer. They too expect power and glory. No one will approve of him – but what is crucial for Mark is that God does. He holds the approval of God. For Jesus shows us from the ministry of John that greatness comes not from the clothes we wear, the family we come from, our wealth or positions in society, but greatness comes from serving others, and being true to God’ s calling to us.
And so in Mark’s Gospel we see Jesus rejecting, as an adult from his baptism, political power, religious hierarchies and social dominance. His Kingdom, Mark will show us, will be in direct opposition to these systems of power and control, which have excluded the very readers of Mark’s Gospel.
The Gospel of John is written to Jewish and Samaritan people, living around Ephesus and modern day Turkey. They were diverse urban believers who had been kicked out of the local synagogues, because of their response to Jesus. These were people familiar in an urban environment with Jewish traditions but also Greek philosophy. They were people who were spiritually searching, wrestling with this man Jesus, his divinity his humanity, and were trying to understand the theological and spiritual meaning and implication of this man Jesus. And so we see John’s Gospel is much more philosophical, spiritual and theological, it’s about trying to make meaning of this man Jesus, and its written specifically for a community who have been kicked out of their faith systems because of this grappling, and so many ways are socially insecure, on the margins of their society now, trying to function without priests and leaders who would have helped them connect to God, and so they are seeking how to encounter God without the established religious systems they were born into.
And so in John’s Gospel we also have no traditional birth narrative. No nativity, manger, mary or Joseph, no angels, Herod or Bethlehem. John’s birth story takes us instead into the cosmos itself. Here we see Jesus being the very Word through which the whole cosmos is created. There is no origin story for Jesus because Jesus is the origin of everything. And instead we have Jesus being that which is before all creation, God Godself. So for John the origin story of Jesus is that Jesus is God, the one through whom everything will be created and take origin. So John tells us not a historical narrative as much as a cosmic theological story. A story reminding this community that this Jesus who has turned their lives upside down is God, it is God that they follow, not just a man.
And then John shifts to “the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.” God enters the world in physicality, in a human body, not as one ruling over angels, but as one who choses to dwell among us.
Talk about class reversal – a God who leaves immortality and takes finite human flesh. A God who is the origin of all creation becoming that which is created. A God who comes from the heights of the cosmos and yet enters below as a vulnerable human baby. And this child is not even recognized for who he is, nor received for who he is.
So the power reversal in John’s Gospel in staggering. God from the highest heights we can conceive of, enters in the lowest possible way, in order to be with us. To live among us. John’s Gospel will show how salvation is about being with, initiated by a God who choses to relinquish all power and status in order to be with us. This would resonate with Johns readers who also have let go of synagogues and roman rituals to follow Jesus, who would have left the security and social status of their communities to become disciples of the son of God.
Again Johns Gospel will show us that although coming to us, we did not receive him, but instead he will face rejection. Even in darkness, the light of the world will be rejected. John is from the beginning of his Gospel critiquing established power structures that fail to recognize God when God choses powerlessness, humility and to be among the common people. Why then should John’s audience be surprised if they too are rejected? For if God is rejected, why would they not equally be?
What we do see in John’s birth narratives in this development of a new class, a new identity – the concept of “children of God” and so John says to all who receive him he gave the right to become children of God. This new class or identity is not based on birth, culture, lineage, wealth or status but simply on the capacity to receive God in lowly form. It’s interesting that this new class is based not so much on ideology or belief as much on the capacity to receive God in a form we would look down on as being too poor, to naked, too vulnerable, too powerless.
And so divine children, children of God are now those who can receive the poor, the vulnerable, who can receive God amongst us, not on those who have the right bloodlines, wealth or status but in ordinary folk.
John is reminding his readers, that they are part of the birth of a new family, and so even though they would have lost family members and friends in their expulsion from their synagogue, God is forging a new family, of which they are a part.
Again in John we don’t see Bethlehem or Jerusalem being named, but instead Nazareth – John reminds us of the saying – can anything good come from Nazareth? Because Nazareth was known to be poor, irrelevant, and while people would use where he was born to discredit Him, this is in fact precisely the point. God choses to move from the heights of the cosmos to Nazareth, a small, poor village. And so John both exposes the class prejudice that was alive and well at the time, and shows how God instead choses that which is considered least.
Again John will reveal our prejudice by quoting what people were saying such as “is this not Jesus the son of Joseph?” People were struggling to accept that God could come from such an ordinary background amongst them.
And so in both Mark and John we don’t find the traditional birth stories. For Mark Jesus comes as an adult from the margins, from Nazareth. For John, Jesus comes from the margins of the cosmos to Nazareth as the Word of God, and the Light of the World.
Both Mark and John show us a God whose life will be characterized by letting go – in Mark it’s the first act of baptism, the act of renunciation. For John it’s the act of leaving the cosmos, and entering a world of flesh and darkness. Chosing to leave false identities related to power, wealth, status and fame is central to both Gospels.
And lastly in both Gospels we see true identity being revealed, In Mark Jesus is the beloved son of God, and in Johns Gospel we are invited to become ourselves children of God. But both identities are enabled by humility. God is pleased when the Son of God chooses the humility of baptism, amongst the common people searching for God. And in John we are made children of God by choosing to receive God in the form of the lowest and most vulnerable among us.
For both salvation and wholeness will be found in relationships – amongst the poor, choosing to be with them and to see God in them, and the power of God will be seen in sacrificial relationship rooted in love and service.
Merry Christmas
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Merry Christmas from all of us at The Priest & The Prof. We will return with a new episode on January 8th.
Episode 33 – In the Shadow of Rome: The Nativity and Empire
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Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe and Rev. Deborah Duguid-May discuss the impact of living under the oppression of the Roman Empire in the Nativity Story in this third part of our six part series on the birth of Christ.
Transcript
DDM [00:03] Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.
MET [00:11] And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.
DDM [00:12] This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.
MET [00:38] We’re continuing our exploration of the nativity story today, but we’re talking about Christ’s birth as a political story. Specifically, we’re talking about empire. We’ve touched on that as we’ve moved through the story, but I want to address it explicitly. You may remember from the very beginning of this podcast that I told you that one of the things that drew me to my faith, that made me feel connected to this story of Christianity, was the political nature of Jesus.
MET [01:11] I understand Jesus as a political radical. He challenged power and authority. And if you listen to the Religious Liberty episode that I did with producer Carl, you know that I firmly believe Christ did not come to be a king on earth. But I do think he came to challenge kings and other authorities.
MET [01:33] If you ignore the politics of Jesus’ story, you’re ignoring a huge part of the gospel. I think that’s like ignoring the politics of somebody like MLK or Cesar Chavez, who we’ve talked about extensively. But people do it all the time. Because if you take the politics of Christ seriously, then the politics we live in becomes very uncomfortable. right?
MET [01:56] Christ challenged power, greed, financial systems, organized religion, and tradition. And we have to ignore all that and sanitize it. Otherwise, we have to deal with the fact that most of the institutional church does none of that. So, I want to talk about the political nature of the stories in Luke and Matthew.
MET [02:17] We don’t often think of them in those terms because it seems contrary to the spirit of the season, but maybe that’s a problem for the church. So let’s start with Luke. On the one hand, Luke doesn’t seem particularly political. I talked a lot about class and economics in this story a few weeks ago, and that is fairly obvious.
MET [02:38] It is a story about poor people coming together to celebrate each other. But there’s questions as to why they were poor. Luke starts out with an explicitly political opening. Mary and Joseph weren’t just going to Bethlehem for giggles.
MET [02:54] Caesar had sent out a decree that everyone in all the earth, or everyone in all of Rome anyway, should be counted in a census. For tax purposes. So all families had to return to their city of origin to be counted for Rome’s records. It may not seem like a big part of the story, and maybe it is just setting up why Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem instead of Galilee, but this tells us some very important things.
MET [03:21] Joseph and Mary are subjects of Rome, and not just as in they are Roman citizens, but they pay fealty to Rome. Being a subject of Rome, not a citizen of Rome, but – Very big difference. Yes, there’s a big difference, and that’s something that has to be contended with. They were conquered by Rome.
MET [03:43] There was no chance not to just not make the trip. Joseph and Mary knew that, even in Mary’s condition, this was a requirement. Rome beckoned, and they had to heed the call. Rome is in charge of this story from the very beginning.
MET [04:00] Rome is the backdrop that you can’t forget. Rome is the exigence and, in many ways, the engine of this tale. Christ’s birth is engineered by political powers. And Joseph and Mary weren’t just making a trip, they were pretty much going there to sign up to be taxed.
MET [04:18] So in this story, Luke is setting up that this family, like all Jewish families, is beholden to Rome. Jewish families gave their money to Rome. Jewish people’s movements and job opportunities were controlled by Rome. Mary and Joseph are, in so many ways, at the mercy of Rome from the very beginning of this story.
MET [04:39] The reason I am focusing on this small beginning, just a few verses, is because it is a bookend to Christ’s life. As his life starts beholden to Rome, so it ends. Christ’s first breath happens when and where it does because Rome said so. Christ’s last breath before the resurrection did as well.
MET [05:00] Did Rome conquer Jesus? No, absolutely not. In many ways, the resurrection shows us how Christ is beyond political power. But Luke shows us how Christ’s life is defined by political powers.
MET [05:13] Christ is a political figure from his birth to his death in the sense that his life is defined by these political forces. And even beyond the senses, one must consider the birth itself. Christ was visited by the poor, his family was poor, there was no room, so they were basically in a cave. These are all very much systemic issues.
MET [05:35] Rome, like America now, was the richest and most powerful nation in the world. It was also a conquering, imperial, and occupying nation. Roman citizens led very different lives than those they occupied. The political and wealth disparities are a part of this story.
MET [05:54] Jesus’ family were a part of a group that had literally been conquered and absorbed by Rome. Jewish people did not have the rights of Roman citizens, which means they did not have the power or the money. The entire nativity story is a tale of people suffering under the boot of Rome, but still finding ways to celebrate the divine. Even in Luke, a story about healing and lifting people up, the politics are inescapable.
DDM [06:23] Elizabeth, that’s a brilliant summary of Luke’s gospel in relationship to empire. You know, and as Elizabeth said, although Christ comes to challenge the empire and provide another alternative way of being, we really do see in those birth narratives of Luke that God uses even the oppressive dictates of the state, like a census for taxation, as part of the story to fulfill prophecy. And I think that reminds me that, you know, in all things it’s almost like God is working in both the good and the bad in our world.
DDM [06:59] Now that does not mean that we should not challenge and attempt to change what is oppressive and not of God, what is not just. But at the same time I think as people of God we are never to lose hope. Because even in the oppressive harm that the state or other powers are enacting, God is still able to use all of this to birth the kingdom of God. And Luke is reminding those who have power, those who are Roman citizens and privileged, because that’s his readership, That even in the injustices they see, this God is able to use it all to fulfill the will of God.
DDM [07:36] That no oppressive actions can stop this coming salvation of God. And I think we see this tension in our own country at this time. So many Americans are appalled by what they are seeing, appalled by what our country is supporting, the wars. and weapons we build and traffic around the world.
DDM [07:57] I think many Americans have tried so hard to become a different nation, a nation that is more just, more honest, and more genuinely about freedom for all. But the power of the empire can sometimes seem overwhelming, and it is so easy to give up and become despondent. Many of the privileged Gentile converts Luke is speaking to are not directly harmed by Rome, they’re the beneficiaries, and it would be easy for them to feel overwhelmed by the power of their own state and to give up because they can. Luke is reminding them to never give up hope, because even in what is not changed, God will use to bring about justice and salvation.
DDM [08:45] I think in Luke’s Gospel we also see this contrast between Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, versus Christ, the King of Peace. I love that. Rome liked to think of itself as the bringer of peace to the rest of the world, much like the USA prides itself on being the bringer of quote-unquote democracy to the rest of the world. But the reality is nation and lands would be conquered by Rome.
DDM [09:12] Those citizens placed under heavy taxation and their taxes would pay for the very military occupying them and for the increased building of roads so that Rome and its military could actually move around the empire. And it’s interesting to me how taxation and oppression so often go hand in hand. Taxation is very often, even today, used to expand the military and the policing of peoples. So in a way, we pay for the military or police that will turn against us when we are no longer comfortable with the injustices of our own empire.
DDM [09:49] But Rome was using the strong military presence to justify the narrative that they were the bringer of peace. Much like we see ice in the military going into our own cities, today of Chicago, LA, Memphis, claiming to be bringing peace but in reality suppressing any dissent and often provoking riots and protests. And so peace through force, the gospel will teach us is actually not peace. Peace through violence and the military is not peace.
DDM [10:24] Peace through the use of power over people is not peace. This is really the peace of Rome, the peace of the empire, which is in reality the use of force to maintain the empire and its expansion. And so in contrast to this, Luke will show us the peace of Christ, the king of peace who will come naked, vulnerable, amongst the oppressed and the poor as a baby. Christ brings true peace because it is a peace rooted in relationships.
DDM [10:57] Relationships with those who are on the margin that are the targets of Rome’s military. Christ comes to bring peace, not in power and strength, but in human vulnerability that invites one to hold, to touch, to wonder, to see the beauty of. It’s in some ways a very human peace. And so Jesus in Luke’s gospel is reframing literally the concepts of peace, of power, and of salvation.
DDM [11:28] It is Rome versus this child. And Luke’s audience of privileged, educated, wealthy Romans will have to choose between Rome and this child of Bethlehem. And it’s one or the other.
MET [11:43] Okay. I’m going to switch gears for just a second, but not monumentally. The story in Matthew, unlike the story of Luke, pretty much reads like a political thriller. It starts kind of fantastic.
MET [11:59] There’s a dream and an angel, pretty unbelievable stuff, but it quickly transitions into a tale of intrigue, secrecy, and even murder. The thing that sets Matthew apart is the story of the Magi, as I have noted previously, but you can’t talk about the Magi without considering their political import. People do all the time, but you shouldn’t. These are men who crossed the known world in search of a baby.
MET [12:28] These were powerful men, kings or wizards or astrologers. Whoever they were, they were rich and probably came from a place where they were highly respected for their wealth, power, and education. These were men of science and reading. And very importantly, the Magi were not Roman.
MET [12:48] They were foreigners. They came from the East. they may have been Persian or Arabian. We tend to romanticize this because, oh, how amazing, these men came from so far away to worship the sweet baby Jesus.
MET [13:03] But this was a risk. Non-Roman authorities traveled across the known world, kings even, and enter Rome to acknowledge the authority of another non-Roman person. Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? The Persian Empire was one of the other most powerful empires in the world.
MET [13:24] These would have been very important people. And here they go, just galloping into the other most powerful empire and tell another king, hey, we’re here to worship one of the folks you conquered. Surprise! And then when they got there, it was all cloak and dagger.
MET [13:39] They went to the king, and he lied about his intentions. So, these kings had to sneak out of the country, and that first king got furious and ordered all the infants should be murdered. Joseph’s family caught wind of what was coming, and they fled the country as refugees to a neighboring nation outside of the empire. This is a story of competing nations and rival kings.
MET [14:01] Royal figures are crossing proverbial swords over this family. Multiple empires are involved in the early childhood story of this poor family. This is a story of a family who is being tossed about by political whims and forces well beyond their control. Empires and Caesars and kings are making decisions that this family has no say in that are upending their life time and time again.
MET [14:31] This is a story of a family that is politically victimized at every turn. Is it any wonder, then, that Jesus turns into a political radical? From his very birth, Jesus’ family is thrown and kicked around by political forces that just grind down families like his own. If Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were here today, they’d be at the mercy of ICE or DHS, and Jesus would be fomenting his radicalism right now.
MET [15:01] just as he did then. We ignore the politics of Christ’s story because we are very uncomfortable with the idea of him as a political figure. But everything about his early life was a politically explosive event.
DDM [15:17] A hundred percent. And I think we really, as we read scriptures, if we read them honestly, we’re reminded of just the expanse of power of politics. You know, the politics of our day shape who we are and who we will become in ways far beyond what I think most of us even are aware of. And especially if we are not the privileged few, but the ones who are drowning under taxation and oppression.
DDM [15:45] And that is the lens of Matthew’s gospel. You know, taxation was real. People were losing their ancestral land because they could not pay the taxes and had to sell. People were losing livestock because they could not pay the taxes and had to sell.
DDM [16:02] The Jewish readership of Matthew knows these realities so well, they live them every single day of their lives. And so unlike Luke, who is explaining to Roman citizens the oppressive nature of Roman taxation and things like a census, Matthew doesn’t actually mention these in the Gospel because he doesn’t need to. The Jewish community know the reality of Roman occupation and its implications because they’re living it every day of their lives. And so it’s interesting that Matthew instead assumes the knowledge of the imperial power of Rome, so he instead turns to how Jewish citizens have been co-opted into oppressing their own people, and seeing how power has been aligned, Jewish power, with Rome.
DDM [16:54] For Matthew, the contrast is Herod and Jesus. Now remember King Herod was a puppet king of the Jews. He was a king appointed by Rome, aligned with Rome to make sure Roman policy was enforced amongst the Jewish communities. So Herod, although Jewish, actually worked for Rome.
DDM [17:16] He loved the power and the wealth of Rome and really wanted to self-identify with Rome. And so it is this quote-unquote King Herod that Matthew’s gospel contrasts with Jesus. The violence, the manipulation, the political strategizing and lies are what we see as how King Herod works and maintains his power. But it’s very different from the child born to be king.
DDM [17:44] Because this child will not use violence, manipulation, will not lie and strategize. But this child king will speak truth. will expose violence and injustice, and will call the Jewish people to remember what a king ordained by God looks like. And the biblical image of a king, especially in the Davidic line, is a king who is a shepherd, who looks after the lost, who heals the wounded, who carries those no longer able to walk, A king is a shepherd who will guard God’s people against those who are
DDM [18:24] wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing like Herod. A shepherd will protect the flock. And so the Gospel of Matthew is reminding Jewish people to not look to Rome for salvation, to not look to Rome for peace, to not look to Rome for their definitions of power and kingship. and to not look to Rome for their identity as some like King Herod were doing, but instead to root themselves in their own identity as people of God.
MET [18:59] Okay. This story of empire is a really important focal point for a conversation about Christ’s birth and ministry to come. In both stories, as we have said, you see the power of Rome. In Matthew, you also see the power of Persia and Egypt.
MET [19:19] These are stories of, as I say, literal empires, vast kingdoms that rule many people and huge swaths of lands. Between these three places, the nativity stories cover almost all of the known world. And I think that is really important. Because in the very beginning, even in the birth stories, we have a picture of a Messiah who came for the whole world.
MET [19:45] Christ came for Rome, which meant parts of Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East. Christ came for the East, which meant kingdoms stretching into the Middle Eastern regions and beyond. And Christ came for southern countries, reaching countries like Egypt and continents like Africa. The Nativity stories literally unite the entire known world.
MET [20:06] Christ’s birth touches on so many nations and peoples. It is foreshadowing that his ministry will be universal as well. But his birth is also anti-imperialistic. In these nativity stories, the kings are humbled and the shepherds exalted.
MET [20:24] Angels appear to poor men like carpenters and those keeping their flocks, while royalty have to deal in the unsavory politics of secrets and espionage. Where Jesus, our focal point, is born into poverty and is lifted up by kings, the kings in the story are humbled by his birth. Even Herod, who is struck with fear by this random kid’s advent, that he goes on a killing spree. The nativity stories challenge empire by both humbling them and by birthing a figure who defies their borders.
MET [21:01] For Jesus, there is no empire. There are no kings. They’re just the people that make their way to him. And that will be the story of his ministry for the next 33 years.
MET [21:13] Beautiful. Thank you for listening to The Priest and the Prof. find us at our website, priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast at priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at priestandprof.org slash donate.
MET [21:37] That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.
DDM [21:40]Music by Audionautix.com
Episode 32 – In the Shadow of Rome: The Nativity and Gender
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In this second episode in our six part series about the Nativity, Rev. Deborah Duguid-May and Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe discuss what it means to be gendered and how gender is a part of the Gospel birth narratives.
Transcript
DDM [00:03] Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.
MET [00:09] And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.
DDM [00:11] This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.
DDM [00:39] Welcome. So in our episode today, Elizabeth and I are going to continue this Christmas series looking at how Luke and Matthew deal in the birth narratives with the issue of gender. And I don’t know about you, Elizabeth, but I’m excited for this podcast. Now, I think it’s important for us to just, in the very beginning, remember that gender is about how we socially and culturally construct these ideas of what role a person is suited to based on their biological sex. So, it’s these social and cultural constructed ideas of what behavior is appropriate and how biological sex should or shouldn’t be expressed outwardly.
DDM [01:27] Now, because gender is so shaped by our society and culture, we have to remember that, of course, in the biblical narratives, we’re dealing with a specific culture and time period very different from our own. Just as we today are having to navigate gender in our own cultures and generation. Elizabeth, would you say that’s a fair summary so we understand what we mean when we’re talking about gender?
MET [01:53] Yeah, I want to be very clear and just because this is something I’m particularly interested in.
DDM [02:00] Right.
MET [02:00] When we talk about gender and sex, we’re talking about two different things.
DDM [02:05] Biological sex. Yes.
MET [02:07] That’s very important for people to understand. Gender is your outward expression of who you are and how you see yourself fitting into society and the role you want to take, whereas sex is the physical.
DDM [02:23] Biologically, physically, how you were born male, female, intersex.
MET [02:27] Right, and I’ll talk about this in just a few minutes; that’s something we need to start with very clearly.
DDM [02:33] Right, right. Because I wanted to be clear when we’re speaking about these Christmas narratives and gender, what we mean by that.
MET [02:43] Yeah, and that’s exactly where you need to start.
DDM [02:44] Okay, beautiful, beautiful. So Luke’s gospel does something very interesting with gender, because although we find some traditional gender roles and behavior in Luke’s gospel, like a woman giving birth. There are many other ways in which we see Luke presenting some pretty radical concepts that would have really challenged the gender norms of the time. Now in Luke’s gospel women are really at the center, unlike most patriarchal texts, which the Bible of course is, where we have the stories of men, the telling of what they have said and done and how it shaped society and history. In Luke, we have the woman and what they are saying and doing and how that is shaping history and their culture, being right at the heart of the Gospel.
DDM [03:34] And so women’s lives that were traditionally lived in the private spaces of the home and their conversations and relationships that were kept generally between women privately are now central and placed centrally in this public story. And I think that in itself is very unusual. This shifting of women’s lives from the private to the public as central characters really is not normative in patriarchal cultures or storytelling.
DDM [04:10] And then we have Mary, as we looked at in our last episode, not passive, certainly not meek and mild as our culture projects onto her to maintain maybe our own gender norms. But instead, in Luke’s gospel, Mary is active, making choices and decisions without consulting men. The angels approach her directly. She questions and engages in discussion with them before agreeing, and consenting to bear this child.
DDM [04:41] And then utters those revolutionary prophetic words of the Magnificat which we looked at again in one of our previous episodes. This is far from the meek, mild and passive woman that so often has been portrayed of Mary. This is a woman with the strength to make radical choices on her own, prepared to deal with the consequences of those decisions. This is a lot more like, in some ways, Eve in the Garden of Eden.
DDM [05:12] This is a young woman who engages angels and questions them. And this is a strong prophetic woman who makes pronouncements on wealth, power, and politics. And so in Luke’s gospel, this is a real challenge to how women are supposed to act and be in the world at that time. Because Mary is a theological thinker, but she’s also a social prophet.
DDM [05:39] And then we have in Luke’s gospel, the narrative where Mary travels on her own again to visit Elizabeth. Elizabeth is much older than Mary, so Luke in some ways provides us with a model of both a young and an older woman. Elizabeth is wise, very in tune with the spirit, and immediately recognizes in Mary the change, but also prophetically sees the role Mary is going to play in history. And so she utters these words that have become central for any of us who pray the rosary.
DDM [06:15] I don’t know, Elizabeth, if you pray the rosary.
MET [06:17] I don’t pray the rosary.
DDM [06:18] You don’t? Okay.
MET [06:19] And some of that is just because growing up Baptist, we didn’t have I don’t know if you know this, Baptists don’t have set prayers. We don’t have memorized prayers or anything like that. It’s just being a non-liturgical denomination.
MET [06:33] Until I started going to a Lutheran church, I never had a prayer that was memorized except for the Our Father.
DDM [06:41] Okay. Interesting. Interesting.
DDM [06:44] Okay. So myself, I love the rosary. And this is one of the most, in some ways, the rosary, central and beloved forms of prayer globally. And it is Elizabeth who utters these words that now we all say 2,000 years later, Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
DDM [07:02] Blessed art thou amongst women, blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God. And so this is the gift of Elizabeth to us, the clarity to see instantly who Mary is. Not simply a young family relative, but chosen by God to bring the one who will change our world forever.
DDM [07:26] And so Elizabeth says, why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Elizabeth can see that the child Mary carries will be the Lord and Savior and this is interesting well before Peter or any of the other male disciples make these statements it is a woman while Jesus is still in the womb who sees this and makes this declaration and so Luke is showing the wisdom and the prophetic insight of woman again challenging the norms of wisdom being the prerogative of men. And it’s interesting as well that in Luke’s Gospel, Mary and Elizabeth’s faith are held up in contrast to Zachariah, who is the high priest at the time, but who ends up being struck dumb because of his doubt.
DDM [08:16] Now, this contrast would not have been missed by readers at the time. And then Luke gives to us the account of Anna, again a prophet, again a woman who was not under the control of a husband for most of her life as she was widowed very young, a woman who was a mystic, lived in the temple with a deep spirituality, and she is the one who approaches the holy family in the temple when they come to present Jesus, and she immediately declares that this is the child all have been waiting for who would redeem Jerusalem.
DDM [08:52] So again in Luke’s gospel it’s that voice of prophecy the voice of wisdom and insight well before any declaration by a male disciples of Jesus as being Lord and Messiah. And so Luke shows us how the first declarations of who Jesus is come not from the male disciples many decades later but actually from women. Because for Luke, women are not just wives and mothers, but Luke shows divine favor and divine action taking place through women. Luke shows us women filled with courage, wisdom, filled with the Holy Spirit, and proclaiming salvation and prophetic social change.
DDM [09:34] And so in some ways, I feel like Luke’s gospel doesn’t just liberate women from gender norms and roles, but actually celebrates these aspects of women.
MET [09:44] So it’s interesting that you end with that point because I’m going to talk about kind of the femininity of Luke. Last episode, I opened by mentioning that Luke is often called the women’s gospel. And I’m going to let Deborah cover the biblical texts as she started out doing, but I think that thinking about it as the women’s gospel, it’s a really interesting place to start.
MET [10:13] When you think about the nativity story or stories as we see them specifically in Matthew and Luke, we get, as we talked about last time, two very different perspectives. And one of those differences is seeing the story from Joseph’s eyes versus Mary and Elizabeth and Anna, et cetera.
MET [10:33] And we can think about this as a gendered tale. We can think about it as telling the story from the mother’s eyes, or the father’s eyes, or however you want to parse it. But in one gospel, you have the stories of the women in Jesus’s life, and in one story, you have the primary man.
MET [10:53] Okay, first off, consider that these are parental stories to begin with. These stories start out human and accessible, and regardless of whether it is a story of a king or a pauper, this story begins with a mother and a father. This is a family story, but the story is kind of gendered. And I want to talk about what that means because a lot of people don’t know.
MET [11:16] To say something is gendered doesn’t mean it is boy or girl or male or female. It’s kind of like saying it is coded male or female, like there is something about it that makes us think male or female. Generally, this is nonsense. There is nothing actually male or female or masculine or feminine about the vast majority of things, but we have assigned that value or trait to them.
MET [11:49] That’s what it means to be gendered. So, for example, think of household chores. Are there some household chores that are mom chores or dad chores? Does it just kind of happen or make sense that the man mows the yard or takes out the trash while the woman does the dishes and vacuums.
MET [12:15] Now, this is all assuming a certain amount of heteronormativity, of course, but my guess is that many of you know exactly what I’m talking about. This is what it means to be gendered. Women are perfectly capable of mowing, and men can do dishes with the best of them. But in many households, those are separated in kind of sex-specific ways.
MET [12:38] They are gendered. Lots of things are gendered for no good reason. Do you think of Legos as a boy’s toy? Newsflash, that’s dumb.
MET [12:51] It’s a brick. There’s nothing male about it. But for many people, it is gendered. It has to be pink and flowery before the brick is acceptable for girls.
MET [13:03] Do you think of kitchen sets as girls’ toys? Also dumb, the vast majority of successful chefs in the world are men. In fact, it is a notoriously sexist industry, and you are much more likely to make it in the cooking world if you are a man. But domestic cooking?
MET [13:23] That’s girl stuff. So it is two different things to make the claim that these two narratives are about a mother and father, and that these two stories are gendered. But In some ways, both of those claims kind of ring true. Luke’s gospel tells us a story of poverty, tenderness, acceptance, grace, and the humble nature of a new family.
MET [13:52] It’s a feminine story. Am I saying a woman told the story? No, I’m saying it’s a gendered story. Luke’s gospel tells us a story about the spiritual and physical hardships of a new family.
MET [14:07] Luke shares the songs and relationships of women who lift and support each other. It’s a story about family and relationships and connection. It is ultimately a story about humility and tenderness. It is in every way a feminine account of the nativity.
MET [14:24] Compare that to Matthew. Matthew is a story of kings and politics. Matthew tells the story of Joseph’s visions and his decisions of how to respond to his betrothed, about whether he should keep her or not. This is a story about Joseph’s decisions, and it’s a story about intrigue and action.
MET [14:46] In Matthew’s account, there are foreign rulers traveling across known lands involved in cloak and dagger type affairs, right? Sneaking in and out of the country. The narrative is about managing power and money as the Magi bring gifts, and Joseph probably had to keep all of that from Herod. And it’s a bloody story.
MET [15:05] There’s a massacre of the innocents. So there is gore and heartbreak, whereas in Luke there’s love and peace. So you can see how Matthew’s account isn’t just a completely different narrative, it is coded differently. Matthew’s story is a masculine story.
MET [15:21] It’s a story of powerful men doing important things. Where Luke is genteel and simple, Matthew is political and full of intrigue. Matthew is the Ian Fleming version, whereas Luke is Jodi Picoult.
DDM [15:35] I like that.
MET [15:36] Right. That’s what it means to say something is gendered, and my claim is that Matthew and Luke tell very gendered versions of the nativity story.
DDM [15:45] Absolutely. And yes, Matthew is a very different portrayal than Luke, centering Joseph. And yet it’s interesting that in Matthew’s gospel, the angel doesn’t approach Joseph directly as they do Mary in Luke’s gospel. The angel instead in Matthew’s gospel always appears in a dream.
DDM [16:05] So this isn’t that direct communication of a woman with an angel, but instead a vision during sleep. I think it’s an interesting difference. Joseph also does not question the angel. There’s no engagement there.
DDM [16:21] He simply wakes, considers the dream, and then acts in obedience. You might say in some ways that Matthew is a far more passive account between Joseph and the angel than Luke’s version of Mary and the angel. In Matthew’s gospel, no woman speaks. But what we do have, interestingly, is the contrast, I think, of masculinities. One is the masculinity of Joseph and the wise men.
DDM [16:49] These men are open to their dreams. They take their dreams seriously enough to go into exile, travel to a foreign land and allow their lives and plans to be completely turned upside down. In these masculinities, they obey the wisdom revealed in their dreams and then they use that wisdom to protect. Joseph protects Mary and protects the Christ child, doing whatever it will take.
DDM [17:17] These wise men, after another dream, do exactly the same. They use their wisdom to protect the Holy Family and don’t go back to King Herod. But Herod in Matthew’s Gospel is the contrasting form of masculinity. This is a man who uses his knowledge of the coming birth of the Christ child to deceive, to lie, to pretend, and ultimately to kill, murder, and destroy.
DDM [17:45] And so I think it’s interesting that Matthew does seem to show us these contrasts of masculinities and how men engage and use their power. On one hand, we see male knowledge and power being used to protect, and on the other hand, male knowledge and power being used to kill. Again in Matthew’s Gospel we see the difference between the power of male humility versus male pride. Herod uses his power to try to hold on to his role, onto his power.
DDM [18:20] He will not allow any challenge to his role as air quote, “King of the Jews.” This is, I think, the male use of power to protect their pride, their position, and their ego. However, Matthew’s gospel also shows us another way for men to be, where power is being used to protect and no attempt is being made to protect ego, status or reputation. So Joseph willingly takes Mary to be his wife even after it emerges that she’s pregnant and not with his child.
DDM [18:56] That would have been pretty unheard of in those days. Male pride would have been deeply damaged, reputations would have been scarred and the woman could easily have been stoned for bringing such dishonor and shame. Matthew’s gospel shows us instead a man protecting her reputation, protecting the child that is not biologically his and putting aside his own ego and pride. So too with the wise men who we must remember are kings and rulers in their own right from foreign lands.
DDM [19:30] They come to find this tiny baby and they use their power not to feel threatened but instead to bow the knee and worship. Kings choosing to bow down before a foreign child. Again, that is revolutionary in its own right. That male power will bend the knee to a child born into poverty.
DDM [19:53] And so I think we must remember that Matthew’s gospel is in many ways just as revolutionary as Luke’s.
MET [20:03] One of my advisors in grad school used to tell me over and over again that an analysis doesn’t mean much if you don’t answer the so what question. Why does this matter? What is the point of all that you have said? And it’s an interesting thought experiment to talk about gender and Nativity, obviously, and even more for me to make bold claims about how the birth of Jesus is gendered in different tellings.
MET [20:32] But ultimately, we have to ask, what does any of this actually mean? We’re talking about all this gender and revolutionary, what is the point? So first, let’s get the big question out of the way. Was this on purpose?
MET [20:50] And I’m almost certain it was not in many ways. When I am teaching my students to analyze a speech or an article or something, I’ll give them a theory or methodology and I’ll say, look for this effect or method or whatever we’re looking for. And inevitably there’s some too cool for school kid who says, do you actually think they did this on purpose? And they are generally shocked when I say, oh no, of course not.
MET [21:18] I do not for a minute, think that Barack Obama sat down to write a speech and thought, I will use an appeal to logos at this exact point, any more than I think Luke sat down and said, I will write a gendered narrative. But I argue that they did.
DDM [21:36] Yeah.
MET [21:36] That’s what they wrote. Because this is not about authorial intent, it is about authorial effect. So let me explain what I mean. We have been doing things like storytelling, writing, singing, public speaking, all of this for thousands upon thousands of years.
MET [21:55] The rhetorical rules for that didn’t exist for most of those years. We’ve been doing this much longer than we’ve been doing any kind of analysis. But that’s actually what I’m saying. The rules didn’t pre-exist before the communication.
MET [22:11] The rules describe what had already been established as effective. When we say effective speakers, writers, whatever, do X, it is not some random proclamation. It is because we have observed for thousands upon thousands of years that this thing, this X, is an effective tool of speakers, writers, and storytellers. So we’ve made a generalization, and we are now passing that on to people who are learning.
MET [22:43] This happens. That’s what you’re learning in things like speech or composition classes. We know from experience that this is effective. These are not arbitrary rules or observations noted after so long. This is what people do. So did Luke and Matthew set out to write gendered stories? Did they think, I’m going to write a masculine tale about the Nativity?
MET [23:08] No, of course not. But that’s not the question. The question is, what is the effect? Because Matthew and Luke did, so now what?
MET [23:16] And the effect is somewhat startling, because the whole of the Gospels tell us that Jesus’ beginnings cannot be relegated to one thing or another.
DDM [23:28] Mm, understood just in one way or the other.
MET [23:31] That’s right. Jesus’ story starts in both a masculine and feminine way. Luke and Matthew give us both insights into Jesus’ life that show us he will be a Messiah that will embody all parts of us. He will be a king, he will challenge powerful men and operate in the world of politics and the establishment, but he will also be a comforter for the outcasts.
MET [23:56] He will welcome in those who need shelter. Matthew and Luke give us a picture of a Messiah who is not just masculine or feminine, but embodies a whole person. The Jesus of the whole gospel is neither effeminate nor toxically masculine. He is a whole balanced and healthy person.
MET [24:18] He reaches people across the binary where they are at. The story of gender in the gospel is spelled out very early and pretty clearly. Jesus’ story is both masculine and feminine, soft and strong. The gospel doesn’t just provide a story of the perspective of the parents.
MET [24:38] It provides us with a picture of a whole and loving God.
DDM [24:44] Love that, and it’s almost like for us to come to our full humanity, there has to be that integration of the masculine and feminine within each one of us, that anima animus, you know? I think also what fascinates me for me in both of these Gospels is how both Luke’s Gospel and Matthew’s are in their own unique, very different ways, both so liberatory, but also revolutionary. You know, Luke’s Gospel is completely turning on its head the traditional gender roles of women. Women are seen to be public transformers of history.
DDM [25:20] Active, prophetic, wise, challenging not just political and social powers, but even questioning angels. You know, we sing in Luke’s gospel that women are theologians and prophets. And in Matthew’s gospel, we see men trusting the intuition of their dreams, being prepared to travel and move and turn their worlds upside down, being prepared even to disobey kings and political rulers in order to protect a woman and her child. In Matthew’s Gospel we see the liberatory power.
DDM [25:52] I think of a man who will use their knowledge and power to protect and not to harm. To protect against the powers that will harm and destroy so that women and children can become who God has called them to be. In some ways that’s almost as though Luke and Matthew’s gospel belong together, as you say, because they reveal both this masculinity and femininity beyond gender norms and how both men and women can use their power in wisdom, in ways that protect, in ways that save, in ways that transform our world.
DDM [26:27] I honestly think that these texts are still radical even for our day to day and have so much to teach us as human beings.
MET [26:40] Thank you for listening to the Priest and the Prof. Find us at our website, priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast at priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at priestandprof.org slash donate. That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church.
MET [27:05] Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.
DDM [27:09] Music by Audionautix.com
Episode 31 – In the Shadow of Rome: The Nativity and Class
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In this first of six episodes about the Nativity, Rev. Deborah Duguid-May and Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe explore the birth of Christ through the lens of class and material wealth.
Transcript
DDM [00:03] Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.
MET [00:09] And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.
DDM [00:11] This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010\. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.
MET [00:38] Luke, the Gospel of Luke, is sometimes called the Women’s Gospel, and I’m going to talk more about that in the future, but I note it now because the Gospel of Luke tells a slightly different story than the others. Luke wants you to know from the very beginning that Jesus is on the side of the outcasts and the marginalized. Matthew, not so much. And I’m going to be talking about Matthew and Luke because, believe it or not, those are the places where the birth stories, what we think of as the nativity stories, that’s where they take place.
MET [01:15] Mark doesn’t have a nativity story in the way that we think of it, which is kind of weird because a lot of people think Mark was the first or Q gospel document, and Matthew and Luke are kind of based on that. And the beginning of John is just kind of a fever dream. Well, read John. So it’s notable that Matthew and Luke’s version of the birth story differ so radically.
MET [01:47] This is where a little bit of comm theory comes in handy, and my undergrads may have groan, but my good friend Kenneth Burke actually has some important insights here. Now, I have talked about Kenneth Burke before, and I am sure you don’t remember, but I’m not going to give you a full rundown again because I don’t think it’s necessary that you get a complete treatment of methodology and theory, but I want to highlight a few things. Burke says that we are storytelling creatures. We live and speak in drama.
MET [02:20] Our lives are organized into stories because we organize them that way. So in a situation like this, it is very obvious that someone, supposedly two guys named Matthew and Luke, had a story to tell. What Burke posits is that you can tell something about somebody’s motivations by analyzing the way they tell a story. People might be telling basically the same story, but depending on what they highlight or de-emphasize, it tells you something about that storyteller’s goals and motivations.
MET [02:56] This isn’t rocket science, right? If I tell you the story of my day, and I talk a lot about how my classes went and what a great time I had teaching, and how great a conversation I had in my rhet theory class or whatever class, then you know that what I valued, at least for that day, is my work as a teacher. That was the best part of my day.
MET [03:17] If I don’t even mention class, however, and I told you about the research that I did and how that was going, and then I tell you about how great my projects are, then you know then I want you to appreciate me as an academic and researcher. If I tell you how great my meetings went and how well I was able to delegate something and make some tough decisions and how proud I am of my organizational skills, you know I want you to appreciate me as an administrator. Now, by the way, that last one will never happen. And of course, I am just as likely to tell you what a great day I had with my family, or how proud I am of my kid, or the amazing time I had with Carl.
MET [04:02] These are all possibility because I do, in fact, do more than work. If I habitually focus on one of these things repeatedly, then I’m telling you something about myself. If I am using these dramatic narratives to tell you something, it is generally what I think is valuable. So let’s consider Luke.
MET [04:21] What does Luke want you to know? Luke wants you to know that, yes, Jesus would be of the family of David, but for Luke, there’s not a lot of prestige that comes with that. Joseph had to take his fiancee, who was pregnant, back to the bustling burg of Bethlehem. I say that sarcastically.
MET [04:42] One of the things about the prophecies concerning Jesus’ beginnings is that he was supposed to come from very humble start. The Bible tells us that the Messiah would come from a few places. He would be from the city of David, he would be a Nazarene, and he would come out of Egypt. In a wild and twisty set of turns of events, Jesus manages all of this, but it is all because of his family’s poverty.
MET [05:09] Jesus moves around a lot because he is a poor kid in a family that finds itself on the wrong end of politics quite a bit. And then there’s the birth itself. They get to Bethlehem and they can’t find a room, so they end up basically in a cave with animals, and they have to put the baby in a feeding trough. Ladies and gentlemen, it smelled in there.
MET [05:31] And Silent Night must be the worst description of a nativity event ever. There was a newborn, barn animals, a terrified new mother and father, And they had what, straw to keep them comfortable? I guarantee you this was anything but silent. And then who showed up to genuflect?
MET [05:53] Shepherds. They had been out in the fields for who knows how long. They were dirty, unclean in the literal and religious sense, and they probably took up more space than was at all comfortable. They probably didn’t have gifts to bring.
MET [06:08] They were poor, outcast men. They didn’t have any way to comfort the new parents. They just showed up. Hey, the most terrifying thing ever just happened.
MET [06:18] An angel showed up and told us to come here. And then there was this huge noise that filled the sky. And so I guess we’re here now. Is your kid like going to save all humanity?
MET [06:26] How is that comforting? How is that something a new mother and father want to hear? But Luke is sending a message. This child signals a new way.
MET [06:38] The lowly will be exalted. The outcasts are welcome. The poor will be brought into God’s presence and the unholy places will be made holy. Luke’s gospel is in some ways a gospel of class revolution.
MET [06:54] The Jesus of Luke’s gospel begins to liberate the poor and the outcasts before he can even talk. Luke’s story of Jesus is one where the presence of God is found with those who society has pushed to the margins. Luke’s Jesus is a class warrior. Luke’s telling of the birth foreshadows Jesus’s ministry.
MET [07:19] Just as Jesus would spend his life attending to the poor and the unclean, at his birth, the poor and the unclean attend to him.
DDM [07:29] Mm, that’s powerful.
MET [07:30] Jesus’ birth is, according to Luke, unwashed and frightening. Angels spend a lot of time telling people not to be afraid in the Bible, right? Carl and I always laugh about angels showing up in the Bible because the first thing they say is, fear not, which makes us think angels must have been pretty terrifying. In a lot of ways, that is the story of Jesus’ life.
MET [07:55] He surrounds himself with those that society has pushed aside. Some because of what they did, like tax collectors, and some because of their conditions, like lepers and blind people. Regardless, he embraces those that his community would just as soon push to the margins. And because of that, he is frightening.
MET [08:18] He is a very scary figure to the religious hierarchy and to the state, because the more he welcomes the poor, the more he challenges the powerful.
DDM [08:29] Well, Elizabeth has pretty much given you a fabulous theology of Luke’s birth narratives. When I first read them, I phoned her and I said, so what do you want me to say? So I’m going to add a few things that might be interesting. First of all, we’ve got to remember that Luke is not one of the 12 disciples.
DDM [08:51] We often forget that. We say Matthew, Mark, Luke and John so frequently we assume they were all disciples. But in fact, Luke did not follow Jesus during Jesus’ lifetime. It’s thought that actually after Jesus’ death and resurrection, Luke was then converted through Paul’s ministry.
DDM [09:10] So what Luke does is he goes about after his conversion collecting these eyewitness accounts from early Christians to provide what he calls an orderly account from primary resources. So we can already see in this gospel that Luke is the scholar. This is someone whose mind wants clear order, he values primary research, he truly is the doctor scholar. But what is so interesting about Luke’s gospel is that he is also the voice of the outsider, because he wasn’t Jewish, he was a Gentile.
DDM [09:48] Luke was not a fisherman, but he was a wealthy doctor, and his audience, those he associated with, were primarily wealthy Gentiles. And so it is believed that Luke is writing this gospel to wealthy or socially elevated people, Gentiles, who were converting to Christianity outside of Palestine, to provide for them this verified account of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. So the question then is, if Luke is wealthy, His friends and readers are wealthy. Why then does he go to such lengths to emphasize God’s identification with the poor?
DDM [10:33] And that is what I want to speak about for a little bit, because although Luke is writing with the voice of an outsider, he and his readers are not people who are living on the margins, but they’re privileged converts living in the Roman Empire. And Luke wants these Gentile converts to understand with no doubt, firstly, that God enters the world not in power or wealth, but through poor and marginal communities. So Luke is helping his readers understand, don’t look for divine power among the powerful, the wealthy, the upper class. but among the poor.
DDM [11:15] And so God comes to a poor family who we’re told can’t even afford the prescribed lamb at the temple and instead offers two common pigeons. The inn is full because it has no space for those who are poor. The Song of Mary, as we looked at in our episode on Mary, Luke includes as a revolutionary hymn. Mary’s not just praising God in general, but expressing a vision of social justice and divine reversal, where the existing class order is overturned.
DDM [11:48] The powerful will be brought down from their thrones, the rich sent away empty, but the hungry filled and the poor lifted up. As Elizabeth said, the shepherds were unclean, considered to be untrustworthy. And yet God reveals the truth of God’s birth, not to the elite, but to those considered untrustworthy and outcast. Luke is reminding again his readers that the kingdom of God is for those that we shun and exclude.
DDM [12:22] What is also interesting in Luke’s gospel is there’s no mention of the wise men, who are wealthy, powerful men, but instead Luke focuses entirely on ordinary people. And, as Elizabeth alluded to, Luke traces Jesus’ genealogy not back to King David, but to Adam, reminding the Gentile readers that Jesus is a savior not just for Jewish nationalists, but for all people. So what Luke is doing is saying to his readers, is this who you want to follow and give your life to? Because if you do, you will have to rethink your social values and your wealth.
DDM [13:07] Luke is saying, understand that salvation relates directly to how you both include those who are poor or marginal, but also how you work for their liberation. Salvation for Luke has very little to do with personal forgiveness or spiritual experience that simply becomes another way of self-growth, but rather about a God in Jesus who is overturning social hierarchies and bringing divine justice. And so through the gospel of Luke, it’s wealthy, powerful, privileged Gentiles who are being challenged that if they are to follow Jesus, they are going to have to live differently. Now Luke is not saying that God condemns them for their wealth and power, but that God does hold them directly responsible for what they do with their power and privilege.
DDM [14:00] To follow Jesus means that they will have to actively side with the poor and the marginalized. Now let’s be honest, this was so radical in those days, as in the Roman Empire, it was the cult of the warrior, the strong man. Power was celebrated. The elite were considered divinely favored, even called Lord.
DDM [14:22] And the poor were invisible, or just a nuisance. Luke confronts all of this reminding the new gentile converts that the first will be lost and the poor will be exalted and the king of salvation will be a man who is stripped naked and crucified by state power. Luke is directly challenging not just the gentile converts but the Roman imperial order itself saying that the church’s core is to practice not just generosity but justice. To form inclusive communities where those that are looked down on in the world will be the ones through whom God reveals God’s self.
DDM [15:02] The gospel of Luke, you might say, for those of us who are Gentile converts and come from one of the most wealthy and powerful nations in the world, this is our gospel. This is the message to us. And it’s as hard for us to hear this gospel as it was for the early converts, because Luke wants us to be a lot more like Mary and Jesus and less like Caesar of the empire.
MET [15:29] So this actually helps me transition right into what I wanted to say about Matthew. I talked about Luke, but Matthew has a different take, which, Matthew is a story of kings and intrigue. In Matthew, we also start with a genealogy. Matthew reminds us that Jesus comes from a long line of Jewish ancestry. Interestingly, there are a few people you wouldn’t expect, including a few women, even some of ill repute, but we will talk more about that in the future.
MET [16:09] This birth story is a lot more about Joseph. An angel appeared to Joseph to tell him how to deal with Mary. Matthew feels it is important for us to know that Mary was a virgin until Jesus was born. This is partly to tell us what a stand-up guy Joseph was, and very much to remind us about a prophecy.
MET [16:29] But there’s no mention of shepherds. The birth takes place in Bethlehem again, but the importance of that this time around is political. Herod is king in this area. Now we’ll talk about empire in a few weeks, but for now, let’s just talk about royalty.
MET [16:49] Matthew wants you to know that Jesus’s birth was kingly. Jesus’s nativity story is a royal story. When Jesus is born, magi come from the east and ask Herod where they can find the babe. Magi has been translated a number of ways.
MET [17:09] Wise men, astrologers, astronomers, but these were rich, kingly, smart men who followed the stars. It would not be weird to think of them as wizards from a court from a foreign land. And they traveled, probably with a caravan, to come see this baby. And I want you to think about that.
MET [17:28] These were not Jewish men. They just saw signs and said, hey, this kid is a big deal. Let’s find him. So they came, they asked the king where to find him, probably because they assumed that if such a significant birth happened, the king would know about it.
MET [17:45] And when they found the child, they gave the family incredibly expensive gifts. The kind of gifts you give someone royal. Matthew is telling you a story that is kind of the opposite of Luke’s, but he’s not telling you that Jesus won’t help the ostracized. He’s telling you that Jesus is not like us.
MET [18:06] He is the King of Kings. Jesus may come from a humble background, but those who are wise will recognize him as the royal figure he is. It also solidifies Christ’s story as a political one. Whereas Luke paints Christ as a character that will liberate the oppressed, Matthew establishes Christ as a figure that will operate in political realms and will be equal with kings and wise leaders throughout his life.
DDM [18:35] Absolutely. And I think what’s fascinating for me is why the difference. And I think it has to do with who your readers are. If Luke is primarily concerned with helping wealthy, powerful Gentiles understand how radical Jesus’ teaching and life is, and where God is to be found, and helping them deal with their own responsibility of power and privilege, Matthew instead is writing for the Jewish community, a community that has been
DDM [19:05] occupied by an outside military power, a community that is looked down on as uneducated, primitive. And so to them, Matthew reminds them of their own political legitimacy. Matthew reminds them that you have a royal line established by God. You’re not simply uneducated primitive people, but you are heirs of the royal line of David.
DDM [19:31] And so this is about a reminding the oppressed of who they are. That they have history that they cannot allow the oppressor to eradicate. And so Matthew clearly shows that this little child, although born in poverty under occupation, Matthew’s saying never forget he is royalty in the line of David. He is our Jewish legitimate king, even if Rome does not recognize this.
DDM [19:59] And so Matthew is reminding the oppressed Jewish community that even though you may find your royal line living in poverty, Royal power is not about status, but about divine purpose. In some ways, you might almost say, Elizabeth, that I think that Matthew is a monarchical account. You know, it reminds me growing up in our family with the story of our Scottish kings living in exile and poverty, but they always knew who they were. And people knew, even under the occupation from England, who their true king was.
DDM [20:36] And so in this gospel, we see this world of political power, the Magi, the three kings coming to worship. Again, this is reminding the Jewish people, Rome may not recognize your power and your own royal line of kings, but outside nations do. This is almost like the United Nations saying, we recognize you, Palestine, as a state, even if Israel won’t. It’s reminding the Jewish people that other people see them, see their legitimacy as a nation in their own right.
DDM [21:08] It reminds people under occupation that the oppressor’s view of them is simply that. But others can sometimes see them for who they are. And so again, Matthew is reminding the Jewish readers that no matter how powerful Herod may seem, this powerless child is in fact the true leader of their people. And then it’s interesting because it’s in Matthew we have this awful story of the genocide of the innocents, where Herod orders all the male children in Bethlehem under a certain age to be slaughtered.
DDM [21:48] Now Matthew is reminding the community that no matter how horrendous the violence, no matter how you may suffer under the occupiers or under your own political leadership like Herod that has sided with the occupiers because remember Herod himself was a Jewish person. It is reminding them that God is working always on the side of the oppressed. And so Matthew pulls no punches in showing and reminding his audience how the current powers are cruel, unjust, and truly barbaric. And that power that is rooted in fear and violence will always be illegitimate in the eyes of God.
DDM [22:30] And then in Matthew’s gospel, we see how royal and political legitimate leadership must go into exile, just as many of our nations have experienced. And so this true king begins his life in exile and displacement and under the threat already as a child of execution. But the birth narrative in Matthew is reminding the Jewish people that the Messiah will always return to his people. And so even though his own life is still under threat, this holy royal family returns to a small rural village, almost attempting to live under the radar.
DDM [23:08] We also see in Matthew this constant quoting of Old Testament prophecies, reminding them that none of this is by chance, that everything is divinely ordained. So Matthew’s gospel, like Luke’s, is a message of liberation, salvation from oppression and from occupation. It’s reminding them who they truly are, not in the eyes of Rome, but in the eyes of God. It’s reminding them of their history, their kings, and that God is working in them and through them.
DDM [23:40] And Matthew is reminding them that they are not passive victims. but are actually part of God’s divine kingdom that is rising from this new child, this line of King David. And so from both of our Gospels today, we are reminded that the message of God differs depending on who you are. What we need to know to find salvation or in contemporary language wholeness if we are privileged and have power differs from what we need to hear if we are under occupation and oppression.
DDM [24:15] The gospel is not a one-size-fits-all but it’s a specific word of freedom and liberation to a specific group or people. So the question that leaves us as readers is who are we? In what group do we find ourselves in? And what is the challenge we need to hear for us to find wholeness, integrity, and justice?
MET [24:41] All of this may seem like a different way to talk about the nativity narrative, but it’s actually a really important lens through which to view Christ’s ministry. Jesus came to be a savior for all people, certainly. But we are missing a big part of the gospel if we don’t acknowledge, as Deborah has pointed out many times before, that God has a special place in his heart for the poor. The stories in Matthew and Luke show us that Jesus is going to spend his life doing two things, humbling the rich and exalting the meek and impoverished.
MET [25:18] Because the Magi were kings or sorcerers or royal courtiers from a foreign land, And their whole role in this story was to bring gifts and praise a baby. The royal figures in the story were forced to work for it. They traveled untold distances and went through political back channels and paid who knows how much money just for the chances to see this baby. The rich have one job, and that is to be humble, to pay up and give gifts.
MET [25:53] The poor, however, have a different set of requirements. The poor will have glory revealed to them as the shepherds saw the angels. The poor don’t have to bring gifts. They can show up as they are.
MET [26:06] The poor only have to be there. The poor are there to bless and be blessed. Jesus doesn’t require them to give up their wealth. He’s just glad they are there.
MET [26:16] Now, I’d love to get all theoretical on you. I would be delighted to throw some Marxist theory at you and talk about class consciousness or hegemony or any number of other concepts that I think are applicable, but maybe a bit heady. But instead of that, I’m going to remind you of a story. There is a parable in Luke about a woman who has 10 coins and she loses one.
MET [26:42] So she lights the lamps and sweeps the whole house until she finds it. The meaning of this parable is that God will search for all of his lost children. But the reason this parable makes sense to Jesus’ listeners is because they all know what it means to lose a coin. Losing a coin was a big deal.
MET [27:02] For the woman in this parable, losing a coin meant losing 10% of her wealth. Losing a coin was a terrifying prospect. Yes, she had nine more, which was a lot. But the idea of losing a coin to a general Jewish audience under the boot of Rome was a sobering thought.
MET [27:21] Jesus’ audience knew the value of money. There’s a reason that tax collectors were so reviled. When these stories were shared later, after Jesus’ life, people would have noticed the disparity in the birth narratives, the lowly and the exalted. The Nativity story isn’t just a sweet story of shepherds and kings.
MET [27:46] It’s foreshadowing. Jesus is going to welcome the poor and demand much from the wealthy. But they are, in the end, all holy in his presence.
DDM [27:57] You know, what’s interesting, Elizabeth, is Mark and John, they do have a theological take on the birth narratives, not as obvious as the two we’ve dealt with today. But they will deal with two aspects, which is interesting, love and sacrifice.
MET [28:16] Thank you for listening to The Priest and The Prof. find us at our website, https://priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at https://priestandprof.org/donate/. That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.
DDM [28:45] Music by Audionautix.com
Episode 30 – Texts About Women
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Rev. Deborah Duguid-May and Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe discuss the ways in which scripture has been used to oppress women. They focus on so-called “clobber texts,” which are specific verses and stories in the Bible that have been used as justification.
Transcript
DDM [00:03] Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.
MET [00:09] And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.
DDM [00:11] This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.
DDM [00:39] Welcome. So one of the things you may have noticed as Elizabeth and I have approached the many subjects we’ve looked at over the last year now is how scripture can be read and interpreted in many different ways. Depending on who we are, we see different things in the scriptures. Depending on what we’re going through or facing, we see different things, which is why we can read the same passage over and over again and see things that we haven’t seen in the past. I think that for me, Elizabeth, is what makes literature and scripture so beautiful, dynamic, and what makes it a living text.
DDM [01:16] But that is also why, equally, people can interpret the scriptures in ways that are not life-giving, but in ways that actually end up oppressing and harming others. When this happens scripture is being used as a weapon against others and in a way that leads to less life and less joy for others. This is when scripture becomes an instrument of death. And this is why we have some passages in the scriptures that are actually called clobber texts because it’s when we begin to use sacred scripture or any form of literature for that matter in a way weaponized against another person or group of people.
DDM [02:00] Now the reality is this can happen in all faiths, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity. But it’s not only in religion that this happens, it can happen with any foundational text. For myself, I’ve watched how in the USA we can see the Constitution being read in ways that bring life or in ways that bring destruction and death. I think for myself it’s the nature of words and how they’re used and misused.
DDM [02:28] So in this episode Elizabeth and I want to look at how scripture has been misused in the past and present to oppress women and how we might look at some of these texts which have been called clobber texts in ways that do not become weaponized against us as women. Because religion, and for women in particular, scripture, has often been a two-edged sword. It can be a source of deep inspiration, connection with God, liberation, but it can also be a site of dehumanization and limiting for many of us that just doesn’t sit well.
DDM [03:06] So if we look at some specific texts in scripture, it really begins with the first book in Genesis. The fact that Eve is created second has often been used to imply that she was made to be second to Adam, inferior in some way. Yet we forget that in creation, if God begins with life like water, earth, and then moves into sea creatures and birds, then animals, then humans, and lastly ends with the creation of a woman, if we are to interpret this passage through a hierarchical lens, which I personally don’t think we should, then woman is in fact the pinnacle and final form of creation.
MET [03:51] And I definitely think we should interpret it that way. I’m kidding.
DDM [03:53] I like that.
MET [03:56] Carl is looking at me like, maybe not.
DDM [04:01] Yeah, I don’t think it’s a healthy way of translating those texts, but we have traditionally used a hierarchical form of interpreting them. Secondly, woman is created from a man’s rib, which has been in the past interpreted as subordination to men. And yet the reality is in the text, she’s not created from the feet or from the head, but the side. implying equality.
DDM [04:26] What these patriarchal interpretations don’t tell you is that Eve is created to be a helper, which again is often interpreted as domestic help, but in fact the word for helper used in the text is the same word used for the Holy Spirit who is our helper. The helper in this particular biblical word implies that the helper is the one who is stronger, wiser, and the one whose guidance is needed. And this is the term actually in Scripture used for the role of woman. Did you know that?
MET [05:03] I did not.
DDM [05:03] I know. We looked in our episode on Eve, on the ways in which her choices have been interpreted. But again, on how that is not the only way of reading that story.
DDM [05:16] Because as we looked in our episode on Eve, it is through her that humanity’s eyes become opened and we gain knowledge of good and evil, that we see humanity seeking to be like God in whose image they are made, and it is through Eve that humankind moves in some ways from childhood into adulthood with free choice and knowing moral consequence. The next place we hit clobber text is in the Old Testament with a book called Leviticus. And in Leviticus, they have a long section on what is called the purity laws.
DDM [05:58] These have to do with the cultural and religious laws that deal with the categories of what is clean or unclean. And so menstruation, bodily fluids, sex, childbirth, were seen as polluting or unclean. These left women during those periods being termed unclean and women were therefore excluded from worship and religious space. And that is why in some traditions, women who are menstruating are not even encouraged to come to church.
DDM [06:33] I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Elizabeth, in many parts of the world, or not to read or enter the sanctuary. And in some of the other traditions in our world today, women will move out of the main section of the home and not cook or touch any cooking vessel so as not to contaminate the home. I stayed once with a woman professor and she was living outside of the home when I was visiting her because it was during her period.
MET [07:02] Oh my gosh.
DDM [07:03] You know, seeing our bodies even in a transitory way as being unclean and contaminating, I think it’s deeply affected and limited women for centuries. And I often wonder if this still finds expression today in women’s propensity to cut themselves and the various forms of eating disorders women experience in relationship to their bodies and sexuality that has left women often with an irrational sense of shame around their bodies and seeing sexuality as being sinful or dirty. I mean, if you think about it, we even use the term dirty magazines, when in reality there is nothing dirty about our bodies or sexuality.
DDM [07:48] But these patriarchal ways of thinking have clung onto us even up until today. What is again overlooked in these passages is I think how the text actually applies purity laws to both women and men. Men are equally considered unclean when there is a male emission and they are considered ritually unclean although only until that evening. But their bodies and fluids were not seen in the same way as with women’s as a source of shame, which is an interesting distinction.
DDM [08:24] But male sexuality and the purity laws was highly regulated in terms of incest, bestiality, sex with other men and some forms of adultery under these purity laws, and often with more severe legal consequence. In all honesty, a truthful reading of Levitical purity laws revealed that these laws were designed to hold the whole community accountable around issues of health and sexuality. However, very quickly in the tradition, these were interpreted in ways that focused on controlling women’s bodies and largely ignoring many of the male requirements. Also, I think it is so important to be clear that being unclean in Leviticus does not necessarily mean sinful.
DDM [09:14] We’re talking here about ritual status, not morality and ethics. And then in the New Testament, we have the Pauline passages that deal primarily with two issues, authority and submission in relationship to women. In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul commands women to be silent in the church. And in 1 Timothy 2, Paul says, “I do not permit a woman to have authority over a man.”
DDM [09:45] What is not seen in traditional interpretations of these passages is that in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul has just been congratulating women on their faith, their prayers, and their prophesying in the church. Paul also, in other chapters, highly affirms leaders of the early house churches, like Phoebe, who was a deacon, and Priscilla, who was a co-worker in ministry with Paul, teaching and leading house churches. Paul also speaks of Junia as being outstanding amongst the apostles. And so we see clearly that women were functioning in the early church as leaders of the house churches, they were leading worship, they were deacons, they were teaching, and even apostles with a far larger oversight responsibility as being those who would have traveled to other house churches and regions.
DDM [10:39] So clearly in the scriptures women were not silent. They had authority over men and they were partners and leaders in the early church. And Paul himself affirmed in numerous passages their ministry and gave thanks publicly in his letters for their ministry.
DDM [10:59] And then we have the passage that has been used in very damaging ways over women regarding marriage. Where in Ephesians 5, Paul commands wives to submit to their husband, and speaks of the husband as being head of the home as Christ is the head of the church. And this is a, I think, a belief that is still very pernicious in our society even up until today. But this is a fascinating passage because the word used for husbands being the head of the home, as Christ is the head of the church, is the Greek word kephale, which actually means a literal, physical head, or it could be used metaphorically to refer to the head or the source, for instance, of a river.
DDM [11:51] So we know that Paul was not speaking literally that a husband is the physical head of a wife. So that would imply that we need to interpret this word metaphorically, which would mean that just as man was the source of woman, i.e. it was from Adam’s rib that Eve was created, so Christ is the source of the church because the church was created from the life and the body of Christ.
DDM [12:16] So kafale is far better translated as that from which something flows or from where it has its source than the translation of head referring to authority. And regarding submission, well, everybody leaves out the verse just before this passage, which starts the whole passage off by saying, submit to one another out of reverence for God. So we’re talking here about a mutual submission to one another. And the word submission itself that’s used in this text refers to, in some ways, a yielding or a deferring to another person out of love.
DDM [12:57] It is not about power and blind obedience, but of course, in traditional interpretations, all of that is quite conveniently skipped over.
MET [13:08] Right. The long-lasting impact of these things is hard to overstate. I think you all know I grew up under the direct influence of these verses.
MET [13:23] I went to churches where women were not allowed to preach, be deacons, or hold ministry positions, unless it was to work with children.
DDM [13:34] Elizabeth, how would that have been then interpreted with, for instance, those that were named as deacons like Phoebe in the scriptures?
MET [13:43] We didn’t talk about it.
DDM [13:44] Oh, okay.
MET [13:46] Honestly, I didn’t know until I was in college that there were women…
DDM [13:51] deacons and apostles.
MET [13:52] Yeah. Just left out.
DDM [13:56] Interesting. Okay. I was just wondering.
MET [13:59] Yeah. In many of the churches that I went to, women were not even allowed to pray in front of the congregation. It was kind of confusing to me because it was very obvious that it was women who made the church run. So many of the volunteers and leaders and teachers and people who worked on the projects of the churches were women, but they were denied any recognition at the church.
DDM [14:27] Elizabeth, it’s interesting. In South Africa, there was a saying in the church that men may think they’re the head, but women are the neck and the spine.
MET [14:37] Right. So, for a while, I didn’t really notice that necessarily because to be honest, my mom was one of the ones making the gears turn. My mom was always at the center of things. The churches we were at depended on our family to operate, so my mom got a lot of attention and had a lot of friends.
MET [14:57] And when I was in high school, the church we were at finally said, look, you do so many volunteer hours here and you do so much work for the church. We think we should start paying you. And my mom worked for churches for decades after that.
MET [15:13] But, when my mom got that job, her title was associate to the minister of music, because they didn’t want anyone thinking she was anything like a minister. They wouldn’t even call her assistant minister.
MET [15:27] There was no way they were going to let a woman have anything like a minister title outside of children’s ministers. So she had to be associate to. I think that was when it really hit home that there would never be a place for me or anyone like me at the churches I had been raised. They just didn’t like women who lead, and I am and always have been somebody who fits into that category. But, these ideas don’t stop at the church door.
MET [15:57] The demands that women submit to husbands stretch across religions, and though it is particularly stalwart in the fundamentalist sects of the Abrahamic religions, it has bled into the very fabric of Western society, as you noted. America likes to see itself as a great defender of the rights of women worldwide, but it is safe to say that women here in America have their own battles to fight. For example, women are not guaranteed equal rights in the Constitution. There have been, since the 60s, numerous attempts to pass an equal rights amendment, but that has been stymied over and over again by conservatives.
DDM [16:42] That shocked me when I first heard that when I came here.
MET [16:45] The argument is that women don’t need to be guaranteed equal rights because citizens are granted equal rights, and that covers it. But that is laughably disingenuous because the argument is made by people who are just really happy that women are making 80 cents on the dollar instead of 50 cents. Because we as a country have acknowledged time and time again that the law does not recognize the rights of different groups of people because they did not merit the full rewards or citizenship. So we chose to redress that in the court system and the law.
MET [17:21] The results are things like the Voting Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act. We have acknowledged numerous times we have to acknowledge equal rights for different people. Pair this with the fact that conservative justice Antonin Scalia once straight up said that because women were not guaranteed rights in the Constitution, He didn’t have to acknowledge any of their rights, and a pretty clear pattern emerges. This is a longstanding and intentional effort to deny women equality in the law in America.
MET [17:57] Until the 70s and 80s, women couldn’t have bank accounts, couldn’t have credit cards, couldn’t have certain jobs. There were actual efforts to keep women out of the places where power and money transactions take place and make sure women were never able to ground themselves. There were actual laws put in place to make sure women would never be able to be independent or support themselves beyond their husbands or fathers.
MET [18:26] Some women found ways, of course, but the system was designed to keep women dependent, submissive, if you will. An example of this, of course, is Roe v. Wade. Many of our American listeners will recognize that name.
MET [18:43] But if not, it is the Supreme Court case from the 70s that codified abortion rights into the law. It was overturned in 2022, and that’s a part of the story too. But what is interesting about Roe is in many ways it’s not specifically a case about women’s choices. Yes, it is a case that gave women the ability to choose whether to end a pregnancy early in its development, but that’s not actually what the case was decided on.
MET [19:15] The case was actually decided on the merits of privacy. Roe v. Wade argued that people, in this case women, have a right to make private medical decisions between themselves and their doctors. That just happens to include the right to abortion.
MET [19:33] Privacy was the sticking point. The government, according to SCOTUS, had no business being involved in medical decisions. What is really interesting in terms of this episode is that a right to privacy for medical patients was a more compelling argument than a right for a woman to make her own decisions about her body.
DDM [19:54] Very interesting.
MET [19:56] What I need you to understand about that is that the right to privacy is nowhere in the Constitution. It’s kind of been interpreted from a few other rights, like the fact that you have a right against unreasonable search and seizures, and the fact that you don’t have to quarter soldiers in your home. But that right to privacy that is literally nowhere in the Constitution was a more compelling legal argument than actual bodily autonomy for women. So submission has been written into the law from the beginning.
DDM [20:28] Fascinating. And of course that form of submission is not a yielding or a deferring out of love and there is no mutuality in these arguments. They’re simply about power, control and of course restricting the freedom and rights of women. And I think this is for me where Jesus always comes in, because Jesus clearly says that it is for freedom that Christ has set you free.
DDM [20:54] And this freedom is not for men only, but for men, women, eunuchs who fell somewhere in the middle of that binary. The freedom is for all, free persons and slaves, Jew and Gentile, for every culture, race and gender on earth. But we’ve not actually loved freedom, I think, as much as we like to proclaim in the USA. Our laws and cultures have been a history of restricting freedom from those that we fear.
DDM [21:24] But in Jesus we see the conscious undoing of all of these. Jesus touches the bleeding woman, not caring about ritual purity or impurity. But equally Jesus touches the lepers, those who were men and unclean from the disease. Male and female ritual uncleanness is directly challenged by Jesus who touches and allows himself to be touched because for Jesus it’s always about compassion, justice and dignity for all.
DDM [21:57] Jesus clearly had male and female disciples and Mary is affirmed for sitting at Jesus’ feet which was the posture of a disciple before their rabbi. Women were the financial supporters of Jesus’ ministry, but women were also the financial supporters of the early church, overturning the assumption that men should be the providers of finance. Jesus first appears to a woman, Mary Magdalene, and sends her out as the first witness to the resurrection, which is the earliest role of an apostle.
DDM [22:33] And so by the choice of Jesus, she actually becomes the first apostle. So it’s not surprising that those who called for Jesus’ death were not the political leaders of Rome, but actually the religious leaders of Judaism.
MET [22:50] One of the things we have talked about before on this podcast is how Jesus eschews the politics of this world. He did not come to be enshrined by our state, he came to be above it. At the same time, we cannot understand Jesus if we don’t understand him as a political figure. He defied political powers, he died a political death, on the one hand, Christ is above our politics, on the other hand, he is a particularly political figure.
MET [23:21] So, when Deborah talks about how Jesus is trying to undo this patriarchy, I want to think about that in terms of what I talked about just a few minutes ago. Our politics is particularly sexist. Our politics is affected by our history, Jesus tried to undo that part of our history. So, why do we ignore what Jesus tried to do?
MET [23:51] And I want to answer that, and I want that answer to be complicated, but it is not. The passages Deborah mentioned before and the interpretations we have stayed with for generations maintain power. And I wish it were something that I could take a few minutes to explicate and uncover for you, but it really is as simple as that. Taking these verses and making them about subjugating women turns some people into property.
MET [24:23] And turning some people into property means other people are property owners. When these verses are put into the light of submission of women, men, specifically husbands and fathers, don’t have relationships with women. They benefit from the different kinds of labor women do, be that domestic labor or even the labor of reproduction. Women become housekeepers and hatcheries.
MET [24:49] In that way, women have a certain kind of value. But it is not as a person, it is as a thing. And if a woman is a thing, she can be traded, used, and discarded. But she does not have to be treated with any modicum of humanity. In such ways, power is maintained. Jesus is inconvenient to such an interpretation. So we just ignore him.
DDM [25:11] Precisely. And I think that is what is most concerning to me, is we’re seeing the re-rising of patriarchal religion under particularly the Christian right, and the stress on men being providers, women and children being homemakers, giving birth and producing children for men. And I think we really are witnessing a very dangerous return of patriarchal family values and gender stereotypes that in some ways are being romanticized now by the notion of the traditional wife.
DDM [25:50] Many women, tired of the demands of now being equally in the workplace and yet still having to carry the bulk of the housework and the child raising, are burning out. And the traditional roles start to begin to feel appealing. Someone to provide for me, someone to take on all the stress of the outside world. But it’s a bargain with the devil that our grandmothers and mothers knew the price of. And so we need to be very careful not to sell the birthright of freedom given to us by God and paid for with the blood of our own grandmothers and mothers.
MET [26:30] Thank you for listening to The Priest and the Prophet. find us at our website, https://priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at https://priestandprof.org/donate/. That will help cover the cost of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.
DDM [27:00] Music by Audionautix.com